BOISE, Idaho — On Monday, December 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data that shows the Omicron variant has overtaken Delta as the dominant variant in the United States. Omicron now totals 73 percent of new cases.
In the state of Idaho, the Department of Health and Welfare reported Monday, that only one case of the Omicron variant has been detected.
"I hope that Omicron is less severe, we just don't know that," said Doctor Laura McGeorge a service line medical director for primary care and urgent care at St. Luke’s Health System.
According to a media briefing with the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, on November 30th Director of the Idaho Bureau of Laboratories announced that the state would ramp up testing for the Omicron variant before it was detected.
"We have really increased the number of sequences that we have been able to process," said Dr. Ball in a meeting on November 30th.
Even with ramped up sequencing for the variant, the state still has only one case of the Omicron variant, but medical experts worry that could change.
"As we follow what's going on in Europe and some other states, I think we can anticipate that this likely will be the predominant strain,” Dr. McGeorge said. "The bad news about the Omicron variant is that it appears to be more infectious than Delta and if you think back Delta was far more infectious than the prior variants so now, we have a variant that's, even more infectious,” she added.
According to Dr. McGeorge, the volumes of ICU patients in the health system are rising, she said all of them are unvaccinated.
During a time where medical experts take a sigh of relief, to be fully out of crisis standards of care-- there's once again the looming concern about what's on the horizon.
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